


nora ephron's new york

by decinq



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Explicit Sexual Content, God Bless That Little Owl in the Rockefeller Tree, Let Richie Ride Dick 2020, Love Confessions, M/M, New York City, That's What Christmas is All About Charlie Brown, Top Eddie Kaspbrak/Bottom Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:59:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27952724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/pseuds/decinq
Summary: “Okay, here’s what you do,” Richie perks up. “You’re going to sign up for the DoorDash membership because you are not going to cook your own meals. You’re going to spend a whole day wearing your jammies, for at least twenty-four hours. You’re going to watch one Vanessa Hudgens hallmark movie on Netflix. You will call me if you start to go out of your mind. You will go for a walk to get fresh air when the weather permits. And you will jerk off at least one and half times a day.”Eddie makes a choking sound through the phone. “One and a half?” There’s a laugh in it.“Yeah, like an average. Some days maybe twice. Some days maybe once. You understand how to find a mean, right, Mister Business  Man?”-or, Christmas 2016.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 44
Kudos: 337





	nora ephron's new york

**Author's Note:**

> \+ a true thing about me is that every year i watch _merry christmas charlie brown_ and i cry and it's basically my only tradition and my only personality trait  
> \+ stan is still dead i'm really sorry i keep doing this  
> \+ mention of the lulul*mon murder, in passing only.  
> \+ there is a blatant theft from nora ephron's novel _heartburn_ in this. just a few sentences. i wish she were here.  
> 

sometimes i wonder: do i do it because i like it, or because i haven't been brave?  
** \- you've got mail (1998), dir. nora ephron**

i never thought it was such a bad little tree. it's not bad at all, really. maybe it just needs a little love.  
**\- merry christmas charlie brown (1965), dir. bill melendez**

Time doesn’t really exist in Los Angeles because there are no seasons. Weeks come and go, and months turn to years. No one ever gets any older because the only marker of their lives moving forward is that their botox appointments eventually have follow-ups. Richie has spent twenty-four years sleep-walking through his life and he didn’t notice because he didn’t know what to compare it against. He forgot, in the time in between, what life felt like when he was actually living it. 

Since leaving Derry for the second time, this time with his memories somewhat intact, Richie’s trying to be more present. It’s hard but his therapist says it’s an important part of being an active participant in his life; connecting his feelings and his actions and his thoughts together. As if Richie’s entire psyche isn’t extremely precarious as is. As if his entire life up to this point isn’t just a gimcrack. So, he’s trying to notice as time passes, appreciate things as they happen to him, or as he happens to them. 

But seasons in LA? Noticing the actual shift is harder for him. He notices when the leaves fall from the trees, but there are so many cacti and palms that it’s just not enough of an indicator to Richie; his mom and her boyfriend have spent the last ten Thanksgivings in Hawaii, and his dad usually spends it with Richie’s sister and her family. Richie doesn’t care about football, so September bleeds through October and into November in what feels like a blink of an eye. 

Richie’s been going to therapy, talking about Stan killing himself and how he’s not sure how to save his career and his mental wellbeing at the same time. He talks to his therapist about how hopeless he feels after the election; what a perfect example of why, exactly, he should say nothing and do nothing and maybe figure out another way to make money. Because he can’t keep saying the shit he’s been saying for years - not when actual violent hatred has so much power. And how that power is making him more afraid than he’s felt in his adult life, save the clown. It’s so easy to feel hopeless about it. It’s not the same as when he voted for Gore. It feels like there’s more at stake, now. 

His therapist, a woman he’d guess is about five years older than him, Nancy, wants him to focus on the things he can control. So he’s been spending a lot of time with Audra, as a result. He would even go so far to say they’re friends now. Real friends who eat lunch at restaurants and bitch about Bill on the phone and sometimes talk about Richie’s time in rehab while Bill loads the dishwasher after they’ve eaten dinner. He’s been busy, is all, and so he doesn’t notice, not really, that it’s coming on Christmas before it kind of knocks him right in the face. 

Richie’s capable of breaking a sweat if it’s warmer than 55 degrees outside, so his body can’t even regulate to the idea of winter in California because he’s always just this side of ripe, even in December. If it’s rainy then, sure, fine, he’s all for spending a Saturday watching old episodes of Cheers from 11 am until 11 pm. But even in the rain, if he leaves the house in his rain jacket, he still gets all muggy underneath, peeling his shirt away from his chest once he gets where he’s going. 

Winter in Los Angeles is not the same as winter in Maine. 

And so, really, he just didn’t notice. He uses a delivery service for most of his groceries, so it’s not like he saw any Santa-focused set-ups at Whole Foods or where the fuck ever. He buys his produce at a small veggie stand a mile away from his house. It’s owned by an older Korean couple who have Richie’s photo in a frame behind the register, a headshot from when he was barely thirty and first bought his house. They sell the best ambrosia apples in the city, Richie’s sure of it. 

So he didn’t notice. 

The Losers have a group chat, but it goes quiet for long stretches. Richie figures that, like him, everyone else got a bit distracted trying to fit their trauma back into the shape of their regular life. Richie’s found it feels less like trying to fit a square block into the circle-shaped slot, and more like fitting a brick through a window. Eventually, something breaks. 

In October, Ben had asked, _What’s everyone doing for the holidays?_ And, mostly, the answer from everyone had been _I have no fucking idea, it’s too far away._ Richie hadn’t responded at the time because what could he say that hadn’t already been said? 

Bev was in New York, surrounded by lawyers basically 24/7, from what Richie could piece together from her rare and vague messages in the group chat and paparazzi photos of her getting in and out of cars outside office buildings. 

Bill was writing, trying to fix his marriage, buying a motorcycle even though it infuriated Audra. Mike was God knows where, sending Richie _emails_ every few weeks with photos and notes like “SASQUATCH SIGHTING HERE IN 1997 - WHERE WERE YOU?” 

Ben was in London, building some ugly as fuck building for the BBC or whoever the fuck, at some point. Ben had not told Richie this, but rather, at 2 am one night when Richie was reading an article in _Architectural Digest_ about the loft set on _New Girl_ , it recommended he read an article about Ben. Richie isn’t sure if he’s still camped up across the pond.

And Eddie - Richie has no fucking idea what Eddie is up to. 

When they left Derry - Eddie with his arm in a cast, held up in a sling and Richie with a disk in his back that will probably never be the same - it had been weird. Loaded. There was so much to say, so many things that could bubble up and spill out between them. And, instead, Richie had said nothing important, after a lifetime of talking so much but never anything worth listening to. Richie had given Eddie an awkward, one-armed hug in the parking lot outside the Townhouse and let him go. 

And so, Richie is leaning against the reception desk in the waiting room of Nancy’s office as her receptionist, a young woman named Megan, books Richie’s next four appointments. “We’ll be closed from the 23rduntil the 4th. But she has space on the 22ndand then again on the 5th, so I can book you into those if you’re okay with it? That’s as close together as we can get you. I know you like coming weekly.”

“Is Nancy going on vacation?” He asks. 

Megan’s face goes on a short journey, and Richie knows he’s said something stupid. “She just closes up the office for the holidays. Do you have Christmas plans?”

“Oh,” Richie says. Stupid. And it’s this moment when Richie realizes it’s mid-December already. “Of course. Uh, I’m Jewish.” 

“Hanukkah plans, then?” She asks because she’s very generous and probably thinks Richie functions more highly than he actually does. 

“Yeah,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate, because he has nothing to say that won’t sound incredibly sad. “That’s nice - that you get some time off work. You spending time with your family?”

Megan nods. “My parents live in Cleveland, so I’m flying back next week.”

“I’m glad,” Richie says. Then stands up to his full height and taps his knuckles on the desk. “Leave the 22nd open for someone who really needs it. I’ll take the appointment on the 5th, though.”

Megan smiles. “Consider it done. You’ll get emails for the appointment confirmations.”

“Thanks, Megan,” Richie says and smiles at her before he goes. “You have a nice time visiting your family.”

“Thanks,” she says. “You too.” 

Richie makes his way down to his car and scrolls through his messages until he gets to the Losers chat. The last message was Bill, nearly two weeks ago saying _Audra is threatening to sell my motorcycle_ , to which Richie replied, _good._

Richie types, _Did anyone send Stan’s wife anything for Hanukkah?_

He deletes it and opens up his Safari app to google _hanukkah 2016 dates_. He toggles back to the chat and sends, _hanukkah starts on xmas eve this year. anyone planning to send anything to stan’s wife?_

He tosses his phone onto the passenger seat and doesn’t look at his phone until he’s parked in his driveway thirty minutes later. There are two messages, one from Bev that says, _Should we send something from all of us?_ And Mike saying, _I try not to remind her that I phoned and then her husband immediately died_ , which makes Richie want to scream. He sends back _you can just say no, mike, jesus_ and then turns his phone off before moving from his car to his couch. He sits down and stays for four hours, watching old episodes of Jeopardy until he peels himself off the couch to get into the shower. After he showers, he takes a Trazadone, and then immediately passes out in his bed. 

\- 

Richie spends most of the next morning trying to figure out everything he can about Eddie’s life. He makes a LinkedIn profile just to see if that gives him more information on Eddie. It doesn’t. He can see his awkward, business-man headshot, and _Senior Actuary at Smith Hanley_ , but not much else. Can see Eddie did his Bachelor’s at UMass and his Masters at NYU. Richie wishes he had known Eddie at that age. 

He finds Eddie’s wife on Facebook, but doesn’t find any links to Eddie there - either he doesn’t have a profile or they both have a real handle on their security settings. He scrolls through her personal information, but there’s no relationship status anywhere on her profile. Richie guesses, actually, once you’ve been married for a decade, you don’t really need to prove it to the people who still use fucking Facebook. Mostly, she posts keto recipes and links to articles about Hilary Clinton being the reason the Democrats lost the election. Richie rolls his eyes but texts Eddie, _you know the guy who invented the atkins diet died from a heart attack?_

It takes a few hours, but Eddie eventually texts back a string of question marks, nothing else. Richie does the mental math. It’s just after 5 pm in New York. Richie says, _are you doing keto?_

Another minute later, and Richie’s phone is lit up with Eddie’s name on the screen. He swipes to answer, and says, “Richie’s Mule Barn, head ass speaking.”

“I hate you,” Eddie says, and Richie laughs. “And why the fuck would you think I was doing keto?”

Richie smiles. “I don’t know. I live in LA. Every prettidiot who thinks it’s criminal to gain five pounds at Christmas time is talking about it within 100 square miles.”

“It’s fucking stupid. Any actual food scientist will tell you that balance is the only thing you should strive for in a diet. Maybe switch some carbs for protein. It’s fucking infuriating.”

Richie holds back his laugh - Eddie’s not being funny on purpose. He’s just. Exactly the same as the version of him that Richie remembers, now that he has his memories back in his head. So easy to rile up. Richie didn’t even really have to do anything, and Eddie is already up in arms. 

“How ya doin’, Eds?”

“I’m fine, don’t call me that.”

“You called me,” Richie says, and Eddie sighs heavily. 

“How are you?”

Richie shrugs, then makes a noise in his throat to buy himself time. “Oh,” he says. “You know.”

“I don’t, actually.” Eddie sounds like he’s smiling. “That’s why I asked.”

“Well,” Richie says. “Not great. But not dead, so I guess that’s supposed to be better. I don’t know.”

“Bill said you’ve been seeing a therapist.” 

“Audra says she won’t be friends with people who don’t go to therapy. So.”

“Is it helping you?”

Richie’s skin feels itchy. “Sometimes,” he says. “How’s-“ he wants to wave his hand in front of his face to make a vague gesture. Doesn’t. Instead, “New York?”

“It’s okay. Annoying that Bev and I have been spitting distance from each other this whole time and never, I don’t know, ran into each other?”

“Do you see her much, now?”

Eddie shrugs. “Lunch, a few times. We went to the IKEA in Brooklyn together.”

Richie laughs. “That sounds like hell,” he says. 

“Well, yeah. Pretty much.”

Things fall flat for a few seconds, and Richie’s gut starts to go tight - he’s always afraid that he’ll say all the things he didn’t before leaving Derry, that he’ll blab some bullshit about being in love with Eddie for thirty years, even when he didn’t know him, as if that isn’t absolutely bat shit insane. He’s also afraid that they’ll have nothing to talk about, which is the other big reason Richie never calls.

“You never call,” Eddie says, his voice sounding - something. Richie doesn’t know him well enough in adulthood to place the tone.

“Neither do you,” Richie says, no bite to it. 

“I just did.” Eddie says.

“Okay,” Richie says. “I’ll do it next time. I just-“ he sighs. “I didn’t want to bother you. I don’t know. You have a life.”

“I want you to be a part of it, Richie.” Eddie says. Richie wants to claw his own eyes out. He settles for pushing his glasses up and pressing his hands into his eyes until he sees black, then red, then white. 

“I’m sorry,” Richie says. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“Work’s been bullshit - I’m working on a project that’s fucked up because someone I work with is at a third grade reading level. The Rockefeller tree is up. I left Myra. Bev is going to see Ben for Christmas - I think they’re, you know, bumping uglies.”

Eddie speaks so fast that Richie has to break it down, but his ears are ringing. It takes him a minute. He says, voice tighter than usual, “How’s the tree looking?” 

Eddie lets out a laugh, one sharp breath. “Huge. Stupid. Ugly. Beautiful.” 

“Are you okay?” Richie asks.

“Yes,” Eddie says. Fast. “Did you know about Ben and Beverly?”

“No,” Richie says. “But I’m sure their bumping is more acrobatic than ugly.”

“Eugh,” Eddie says. “Why are you making me think about them having sex?”

“You brought it up!” Richie can’t help but laugh. 

“Well I regret it immensely!” Eddie laughs, too. “Listen - I’m about to get in the elevator to head home. Can I call you back?”

“I’ve got nothing going on,” Richie says. “Call me whenever.”

“I’ll call when I get home. Give me an hour.”

“New York is disgusting. An hour to get home? Where the fuck do you live, New Jersey?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie laughs. “As if LA isn’t just as bad. I have to stop at the store.” 

“Whatever you say, Spaghetti. Call me back.”

“Bye, Rich,” Eddie says, and then hangs up. 

-

He does call back, almost exactly an hour later, pretty much to the minute. They talk about the keto thing a bit more, and Eddie, very sincerely says, “I hope no one is shaming you into thinking keto is a good idea.”

Richie says, “Oh, no, people have lots of other things to shame me for that take higher priority than my BMI.” 

“BMI is racist. Google it.”

“I won’t, because I can’t read, but I believe you. Most of science is racist.” 

Eddie explains it anyway, and Richie lets him, happy to let Eddie talk and talk and talk. Richie likes to make people laugh and wants people to love him and talks specifically to get people’s attention, but this is different in a way he’s not sure how to place. He’s sure that he and Eddie could bounce off each other and create a God awful racket were they together. But there’s something precious about his tinny voice through the phone, the way he puts Richie on speaker phone to make his dinner. There’s no pressure to be a certain way, or to say a certain thing. Eddie wants to talk to Richie just because he’s his friend; he’s not looking to gain anything, or have some kind of experience. It’s just about listening to each other. It’s a kind of talking that Richie has had very little opportunity, in his adulthood, to get familiar with. He’s going to work hard to keep it safe, keep it going. 

They talk while Eddie eats, and while he cleans up, and while Richie waits for his UberEats order to be delivered, and while Richie shovels Pad See Ew into his mouth. Eventually, Richie says, “I should probably let you go. It’s getting late there.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “You’re probably right. But.”

“But what, Eds?”

“I wanted to say. I saw your texts in the group. If you wanted to send her something. I’d, you know. I could pitch in, or sign my name too or something. I hate the idea that he was a full person with a full life and we don’t know anything about it.”

He says it all in a rush. It makes Richie’s eyes sting. “I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I have so much to tell him.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I know what you mean.”

“I miss him,” Richie says. He wipes at his eyes. “I wanted to know him so bad.” 

“He would have wanted to know you, too.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Richie says. “But it’s a nice sentiment.”

“Well,” Eddie says. Sighs. “I want to know you, Richie. I’m really happy I get to.”

“I’ll look into ideas of what to send her.”

“Let me know what you find,” Eddie says. “I need to shower before bed.”

“Sexy,” Richie says, not heat to it, and Eddie laughs. 

“You should’ve seen me trying to wash my hair with a garbage bag wrapped around one arm.”

“Next time,” Richie says, and Eddie squawks. “Night, Eds.”

“Good night,” Eddie says. There’s static for a second, and then Eddie says, “Hang up first.”

Richie laughs. “Oh, my God. Bye, Eddie.” 

“Bye,” Eddie says, and Richie waits another few seconds, knowing Eddie’s waiting, and then he does hang up, because otherwise he’ll have to talk about why he didn’t want to in therapy. This way, it doesn’t have to be a thing. 

-

On Friday, he meets with Steve about breaking the contract he has with his ghostwriters. After, he meets Audra at Bottega Louie, and hates himself a bit as he orders a $16 club sandwich, but then hates Audra a bit more when he learns she’s drinking a $26 glass of wine. “I need to donate to a charity ASAP,” Richie says. Then lifts his nose at her. “You, too.”

“You’re right,” Audra says. “We should get Bill in on it, too.” 

“That rich fuck,” Richie says, and Audra sorts. 

Their food comes, and his sandwich is good, but he could have made it at home for no more than five dollars worth of groceries. He’s just not very good at picking out tomatoes. 

“What’re you guys doing for Christmas?” Richie asks. 

“We usually visit my parents,” she says. “But we might go see Bill’s dad.”

“Have you met him?” Richie knows Bill has only just started talking to his dad again, after a silence that seems to have lasted years. From what Richie’s put together, Bill’s mom died some time in the early 2000s.

She shakes her head, no. “Bill didn’t invite him to our wedding.”

“I’m sorry,” Richie says, and she waves him off.

“You have no reason to be. Bill’s been talking to him on the phone a lot. Taught him how to FaceTime last week. We’ve chatted a bit. But he doesn’t like flying, so we have to go to New Hampshire to see him.”

“I’m happy they’re talking again,” Richie says. “He’s a funny guy. Bill’s mom was really good at playing piano, when we were kids, and Bill’s dad used to make up words to old classical piano shit she’d play. But we were really young when he did that.” Before Georgie died, Richie doesn’t say. “I think you’ll like him.”

“Me too. What about you?” She asks. 

Richie shrugs. “I don’t know. My mom and dad divorced when I was in college, so it’s always an ordeal.”

“Your sister has kids, right?”

Richie nods. “Yeah, but they’re older now. Like 18 and 21 or something. We’re not very close.”

“I always wanted a sister,” Audra says, and it’s one of the reasons Richie likes her. He knows she understands that he’ll be alone, but she’s not pushing it, respects him enough to not make him say it out loud. 

“Why? Someone to steal your lipgloss and ruin your favourite shirts? It’s overrated.”

“Your sister stole your lipgloss?” She asks, and Richie snorts a laugh loud enough to make the people at the next table over look at them.

Once he gets home, he texts Eddie, _what if we donated some money in stan’s name?_

_That’s a great idea_ , he responds immediately. _Where to?_

_Atlanta Humane Society?_ Richie asks, and sends a link. 

-

“Your whole life is defined by ‘time-off,’ dude.”

“Don’t ‘dude’ me!” Richie laughs into the phone. Having kept his promise, he phoned Eddie fifteen minutes ago, marking the start of Eddie’s weekend. 

Richie’s life has a disjointed kind of monotony to it - he doesn’t operate on a workweek, so he’s free to fill his days with anything. He goes to brunch meetings on Tuesdays, takes naps at 11 am, daydreams about what the inside of Eddie’s office looks like. 

“Fuck off, my point is that just because you’re a God-damned lay about doesn’t mean I am! I am deeply looking forward to having two weeks off work to stare at the walls in my sad one-bedroom apartment.”

“Eddie, baby, is this a cry for help?”

Richie can almost see Eddie roll his eyes. “I’m still learning how to relax. I don’t really know how to do it.”

“Okay, here’s what you do,” Richie perks up. “You’re going to sign up for the DoorDash membership because you are not going to cook your own meals. You’re going to spend a whole day wearing your jammies, for at _least_ twenty-four hours. You’re going to watch one Vanessa Hudgens hallmark movie on Netflix. You will call me if you start to go out of your mind. You will go for a walk to get fresh air when the weather permits. And you will jerk off at least one and half times a day.”

Eddie makes a choking sound through the phone. “One and a half?” There’s a laugh in it. 

“Yeah, like an average. Some days maybe twice. Some days maybe once. You understand how to find a mean, right, Mister Business Math Man?”

“I thought you meant— nevermind. Why should I invest in a DoorDash membership?”

“Did you think I meant edging? Eddie, did you think I was telling you to edge yourself once a day?”

“Stop!” Eddie screeches, and Richie is smiling so big his face hurts. He missed him. “DoorDash membership.”

“You’re going to spend the thirty bucks on delivery anyway. You know you will. Listen to me. I’m a professional lazy man. It’ll be the best investment you ever make.”

“I invested in lululemon when they went public,” Eddie says. 

“You ever read about the luluemon murder?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Do I want to know?”

“It’s actually not funny. It sucks. They use unethical labour though, I’m pretty sure. You should pull your money out.”

“Anyways,” Eddie says, drawing it out. “I just - I’m afraid I’ll be bored. Worried being off work will make me depressive. And the whole office is shut down, so it’s not like I can even bank the time and work through it. No one else is working.” 

“Isn’t winter supposed to be New York’s best season?” Richie asks. 

“It’s all sludgy. Like, for tourists maybe, but I don’t know.”

“I’ve always wanted to do movie montage shit in New York at Christmas. Meg Ryan hefting a tree up the street to her apartment type shit.”

Eddie’s quiet on the other end for a minute, then, “You could.”

“I could heft a Christmas tree up the street?” 

“No,” Eddie says. “I meant - you can come here. We can do that stuff. I’ll even go skating with you, even though that’s pretty much exclusively for tourists.”

Richie bites his lip. He wants to see Eddie so bad that it scares him. Thinks, actually, he probably shouldn’t. But then, what’s his plan? To never see Eddie again, because he wants him so bad? Talk to Eddie on the phone every once in a while until they slip apart again? That’s a terrible fucking plan - even Richie at his most self-flagellating knows that’s not something he would ever wish on himself. He didn’t know what he was missing, before going back to Derry. But now, it’s like all the empty space in his life has a spotlight shining down on it. He was so lonely, and he had no real friends, and he took so little responsibility for his own life. 

He didn’t know how lucky he would turn out to be. To love and be loved and survive long enough to feel that, really sit in it. Richie’s still learning, of course, but he thinks he’s starting to get it - happiness. He’s figuring out how it works. It’s like tossing onions and carrots and chicken scraps into a pot - it takes time and warmth to become stock. You have to let it stew. You have to take the steps to nurture it. And once you have it, it’s so versatile. He knows he isn’t there yet; that his life is still simmering, that there’s something cooking on low temperature; but he is getting there, and he knows that he’ll have to do something about it sooner or later. 

It doesn’t even really matter if Eddie doesn’t want to be with Richie the way Richie wants to be with him. It’s sad, of course, to have so much love to give and nowhere real to put it down, but actually, Richie feels lucky to love Eddie at all, to know him at all. He knows what it’s like on the other side of his longing - he didn’t remember Eddie and didn’t get to laugh at his jokes and didn’t get to gossip about their other friends with him and didn’t get to know that Eddie doesn’t like to hang up first - and he doesn’t ever want to go back to that. He was lonely before, but he didn’t know what it was like to not feel that way, so he didn’t understand what he was missing. 

And so Richie says, “Yeah, yes, of course. When? Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious,” Eddie says, and he sounds relieved. Like he put something out on the line and Richie actually bit. “My last day at work is the 22nd ,” Eddie reels him in like a stuck fish. 

“I’ll be there,” Richie says. Fishermen club fish over the head before they gut them, so at least they’re dead before their insides get spilled over the floor. “With bells on.”

\- 

Richie doesn’t have a checked bag, just his carry-on, so he slips out of Arrivals and out into the chaotic pick-up station outside JFK. He waits in a small line until he’s ushered into a taxi by some poor airport employee bundled in a JFK-branded, puffy jacket and hat. He gives Eddie’s address, and Richie takes a moment to process that Eddie lives in Greenwich Village.

Something about it reminds Richie of when they were kids, in tenth or eleventh grade. At that age, Eddie talked and talked and talked about moving away, maybe they would go to San Francisco, or Chicago, or New York, and maybe Richie could have a radio show and Eddie could study at NYU and they would do something, anything, it didn’t really matter, Eddie used to say, because they’d be together and they’d figure it out. At the time, Richie had always felt like he was banging his head against a wall; it confused him to no end - that Eddie just assumed Richie would be where Eddie was. What did that mean? 

In the cab, Richie watches people bustle along the city streets. Traffic Isn't so bad. It’s so much colder in New York than in California. Like the beginning of a good manic episode, Richie’s eyes feel clear. His heart hammers against the inside of his ribs. He slips his phone out of his jacket pocket and sends Eddie a text that reads _in a cab. What’s your buzzer code?_

When he comes out the other end of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, Eddie responds, _It’s broken so text me when you’re 3 mins away. I’ll come down._

When Richie’s cab pulls up outside Eddie’s building, Eddie’s already standing outside the front door, frowning. He’s wearing a dark sweater, but Richie can’t tell if it’s navy or black from inside the car. His arms are crossed over his chest, maybe because he’s annoyed but likely because he’s cold and doesn’t want to admit it. Richie pays in cash, tips heavy, and scurries out of the taxi faster than he’s ever done anything. “Jesus, Eds, where’s your coat?”

Eddie ushers Richie inside the door but doesn’t offer to take Richie’s duffel from him. His cheeks are rosy from the cold. Richie throws his arm over Eddie’s shoulder as he shuffles inside. He uses Eddie being without a top layer in 35-degree weather as an excuse to rub his hand up and down Eddie’s upper arm. Eddie leans a bit of his weight into Richie, so Richie decides not to worry about it. “I didn’t think I’d need it.”

“You could have waited inside,” Richie says as Eddie presses the button for the elevator hard, twice in quick succession. 

“I didn’t want you to miss it.”

And isn’t that just something, Richie thinks. He knows Eddie’s been lonely, too. That time and life haven’t been kind to either of them, not really. But Eddie is so good at this, at being a friend, at knowing what to do and what to say to make Richie’s heart skip, to make his palms sweat. Eddie’s presence does something inexplicable to Richie; he gets a bit nervous, sure, but Richie knows that just because it matters a whole lot to him - so often, Richie’s mind races; so often, he feels outside of himself; so often, he is distracted and distracting, frustrated and frustrating, but being in the same space as Eddie makes him feel…quiet. 

Eddie is kind of an awkward adult - stiff in a way he wasn’t as a kid - but he’s warm, too. Being with him feels the same way as Richie feels when he pulls his bedsheets out of the drier and buries his face in them. Smells just as good, too. 

The inside of Eddie’s apartment is both exactly and nothing like Richie expected. It’s a bit bare, for sure, but Eddie’s also only lived there for a few months. And he’s never been on his own except in a dorm room. He’s still finding his footing.

And yet, it feels very much like Eddie. There’s a shoe rack by the door, so Richie slips his shoes off and tucks them neatly onto the top wrung. The floors are a dark hardwood, and the entryway opens into a small L shaped kitchen. There’s a pot sitting on the stove, and whatever it is that Eddie’s cooking, it smells rich and like mushroom and onion. 

“The couch pulls out,” Eddie says, gesturing vaguely at his living room. He has a raw-edge coffee table and a side table that matches. He’s got a candle burning. A small bookshelf in the space between where the TV is mounted and the corner. There are two windows. “Bathroom’s down the hall. You can toss your stuff in my bedroom,” he says, pointing to the other end of the apartment. It’s not huge, but it’s nice, warm in a modern way that Richie knows is cool but doesn’t know why or how. “I figured I can take the couch,” Eddie says stepping into the kitchen and lifting the lid from his dutch oven and stirring whatever is inside. “‘Cause of your back,” he adds. 

“You don’t need to do that,” Richie says. “It’s nice of you to have me at all.”

“Don’t do that,” Eddie snips, but there’s no real punch to it. “Go put your stuff down. Shower if you want. Dinner will be done in 10 minutes or so. I just have to make noodles.”

“Noodles,” Richie says, dreamily. He’s hungrier than he thought. Eddie rolls his eyes and puts on his electric kettle. “Okay, okay,” Richie smiles, crooked teeth, “I’m going.”

-

Turns out, dinner is mushroom stroganoff over egg noodles. It’s really quite amazing, actually. Eddie’s cooked spinach into it, and Richie thinks it’s actually a great addition. They eat sitting on the couch, facing each other. Richie talks about his flight, Eddie talks about work, they eat and laugh and sip their way through an entire bottle of white wine, Eddie’s Spotify playing off his AppleTV. It’s very lovely, all things considered, and Richie relishes that this is what friendships are like. Simple and happy. That he gets to be a part of it.

“This is really nice,” Richie says. “Never had a day of travel end on such a cozy, well-fed note.”

“I’m glad you think my apartment is better than a hotel and airport food.”

“I mean it!” Richie budges Eddie’s calf with his socked foot. “Thank you for dinner.”

“No worries,” Eddie says. His cheeks are tinted pink. Richie’s own feel a bit warm. Decides to blame it on the wine and the throw blanket they have dropped across their laps. “This is a nice place.”

“It’s a sublet. Someone at my firm took a contract in London.”

Richie whistles. “Fancy words.”

“I hate renting, as a concept. But until the divorce is finalized…” He trails off. Shakes his head. Richie is incredibly charmed by everything Eddie does, but seeing him like this, in his own space - it’s enough to make Richie’s blood warm by a few degrees. 

“I’m proud of you,” Richie says. It’s probably too earnest. “If that’s weird to say, I’m not sorry. I hope someone’s told you. How brave you’ve been.”

Eddie’s face doesn’t really move. He holds his gaze on Richie’s face, and Richie feels sort of split open, but then Eddie shakes his head and the feeling passes. Eddie says, “Uh, yeah. Bev said. But. Um, thanks?”

Richie smiles. “‘Course, Spaghetti man.” He wants to ruffle his hand in Eddie’s hair, but doesn’t. Eddie groans at the nickname but doesn’t say anything about it. “What’s on the docket for tomorrow?”

-

Richie sleeps until his alarm goes off at 9:45 the next morning, which he set so he wouldn’t sleep until noon, and to help him adjust immediately to the time difference. He won the war and convinced Eddie to sleep in his own bed. He rolls over on the pull-out couch, which wasn’t as bad as he expected it to be, and listens to the sounds of Eddie’s apartment and the street below. It’s Friday, and while Eddie has the day off, not everyone else in the city does: there are car horns honking, people chatting and yelling and shuffling around outside. Whoever lives above Eddie is walking around upstairs, the creaking of their morning routine coming through the ceiling. 

Richie reaches for his glasses and blinks his eyes as he adjusts to being able to see again. 

Once he adjusts to all the sounds of the outside world, the world inside Eddie’s apartment becomes easier to hear. Richie smiles. Eddie is snoring. 

Richie feels like his whole life has been lived like a dried up sponge, kind of misshapen and grody. And now that he’s been thrust back into the same circle of reality as Eddie, he’s trying to soak up everything. Every weird little detail of his life gets filed away in Richie’s head. Eddie doesn’t usually drink on weeknights - he shared that with Richie last night. He didn’t have a credit card until he was twenty-five, and only got it because he knew he needed a credit score to be allowed to finance a car. And now: Eddie snores. 

He snores real bad. Richie suspects he might even have sleep apnea. Did Myra never tell him? Richie tries to focus but can’t hear the sounds of an apnea machine. He takes a moment to imagine Eddie with one strapped to his face. Then he gets up, fights the urge to pop his head into Eddie’s room to see if he’s sleeping with his mouth wide open, and instead turns on the kettle. 

Eddie doesn’t have coffee in the house, which actually seems fair to Richie - he knows that people with anxiety disorders often work to reduce their caffeine intake. He opens and closes cupboards until he finds some black tea. Sets up a second mug with a teabag in it but leaves it at that, then pours boiled water into his own mug. He watches the tea bag float in the water for a few minutes as it steeps. Turns out, Eddie has real, 2% milk in the fridge, although it is lactose-free. Richie adds it to his mug, shuffles back into the living room, and folds the bed back into the couch. He sets the pillows up on one end and stretches his legs out onto the coffee table. 

Once Richie’s done with his tea, he showers. Considers jerking off but knows he’ll only think about Eddie, asleep in the other room, so he doesn’t. He washes his hair with Eddie’s shampoo and conditioner and sniffs at Eddie’s bottle of body wash before using it. 

When Richie finishes dressing, he brushes his teeth. By the time he’s done, Eddie is awake, glaring at the wall as he stares straight ahead, leaning against the counter, sipping from the mug Richie set out for him. 

“Your face’ll get stuck like that,” Richie says. 

Eddie looks at him and blinks a few times, slowly. He takes a big gulp of his tea. “I think I already have resting bitch face,” he says, voice a bit raspy. He clears his throat. “Thanks for setting me up a mug.” He lifts his tea in Richie’s general direction. 

“You sleep late like that often?” Richie asks.

“God, no, I fucking wish I did,” Eddie says. His smile is small, cozy like the rest of the apartment. Soft and warm just like the blanket thrown over the back of the couch. Worn. Precious. There for Richie to see. “’S probably the wine.”

“I’m hungry,” Richie says. Eddie rolls his eyes. 

“I was going to shower. Figured we can eat on our way out.”

What’s on the docket is this: Eddie showers, and they walk a few blocks to a small café that Eddie says is his favourite in the city. Richie orders a latte and Eddie gets a decaf cappuccino. They share a chocolate croissant, which Richie admits is really good, and then they order a plate of eggs Benedict and a side of fruit to share. Richie let Eddie pick which benny they got, and Richie thinks he chose well - sun-dried tomatoes and spinach and brie cheese. Richie’s not sure what Eddie’s food-allergen journey has been like since leaving Derry, but he’s pretty sure Eddie would have never eaten breakfast like this before. Assumes the fruit is a compromise he’s making with his past self. 

After they’ve eaten, they get on the M train and take it into Queens to go to the Museum of the Moving Image. Richie’s actually never been - he’s been to the MOMA and he’s been to the Natural History Museum, and it makes him feel giddy that Eddie chose this. 

Richie lingers at certain displays, Eddie at others. They sit in a small room with a projected reel of old Chaplin movies, and it takes everything in Richie’s soul to not hold onto Eddie’s hand.

“I missed going to the movies with you, Eds,” he says as they’re leaving. 

Eddie knocks his shoulder into Richie’s arm. He’s pulled a toque over his ears, is really bundled up, wearing a dark green scarf that he’s wrapped around the bottom part of his face. “I think all my most traumatic movie experiences were with you,” he says, but he’s laughing. Richie looks at him from the corner of his eye when they stop at a light, waiting for the signal to change. 

“Oh, come on.”

“Remember when I accidentally spilled my soda all over — God, who was it? Bowers and Belch, maybe? Bowers and somebody.”

Richie doesn’t quite shudder, but he does feel chilled by it. 

It takes him a minute to place the memory, to actually see it in his mind instead of just remembering the story of it. Eddie had fumbled with his kid sized soda and it fell over the balcony. Richie remembers it happening in slow motion. Then he remembers the sound of it landing, splashing all over the seats beneath them. And Bowers and Belch, and whoever else, just happened to be in the seats that constituted the splash zone. They made a big commotion, and Richie leaned over to see them looking up at him, and his blood nearly ran cold. But he wasn’t about to let Eddie get his socks knocked on his own, so he stood up, said, “Hey Fuckface!” and dumped his entire bag of popcorn down on them. Then he grabbed Eddie’s hand and they ran for their lives. 

“What movie were we trying to see?” Richie asks, instead of expanding on the anecdote in any meaningful way. The signal changes and the walk sign turns.

“God, I have no idea.” They cross the street. 

Richie has to buy a ticket to get back on the train, but once they’re on, Eddie unbundles a bit from his cocoon of winter accessories. He tugs his fancy, business man leather gloves off his fingers and stuffs them into the pocket of his coat. Richie takes the opportunity to shove his hands into his pockets to keep from touching Eddie. Although to be fair, being on the train would be a good excuse. It’s bumpy. 

Richie daydreams as they stand in silence on the train - it’s only been half a day, but Richie already feels more alive than he’s felt in…God, in ages. Reuniting with the Losers in Derry had been something else, like a bender but instead of drugs and liquor, it was cortisol and adrenaline. He’d felt relieved, sure; happy to see them and scared of our his mind and very, very confused.

And in the months between then and now, Richie’s felt…pretty aimless, really. When you look at fear and death and cruelty for so long, so close up…it’s hard to know how to fit that pain back into the shape of your life. His trauma (and it is trauma - he’s working on calling it that, on saying it out loud) has made him feel like he’s very alone. Everyone else has their own stuff going on. And Richie just…hasn’t. 

But being here with Eddie is unlike anything else. They are having a perfectly normal day. But Richie feels more alive in his own skin than he has since he was a kid, probably. He comes back to himself when the train jolts, and he catches Eddie watching him. Richie smiles, tight lipped and says, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Eddie says, and smiles up at Richie. “You good?”

“Great,” he says. “That was really fun.”

“Well it’s not over yet,” he says. Richie lifts an eyebrow, but Eddie doesn’t budge. “It’s a surprise. Don’t give me that look.”

They get off the train at 53rd , and Richie grins wide at Eddie. “Are we going where I think we’re going?”

Eddie snipes. “You can think? Like actual thoughts?”

Richie laughs, doesn’t have a comeback for the entirety of Eddie Kaspbrak’s existence. “Fuck you, man. Stop being funnier than me.”

“I’m not that funny,” Eddie says. Then smirks. “You’re just setting the bar real low.”

“It’s on the ground!” Richie agrees, just to make Eddie smile. He does, so Richie counts it as a win. 

“I hope it’s not corny,” Eddie says. They bump their way up Fifth Avenue until they get to Rockefeller Plaza. “You said-“

“I did. It’s not! It’s so not corny. Or it’s so corny that it’s come full circle and it’s just cool.”

-

When it’s their turn, Richie balks at the price - _thirty dollars per person to skate?_ It seems a bit steep, to him, so he insists on paying. Eddie got the tickets to the museum.

They get laced up in their rental skates, and it’s…ridiculous. Easy and silly and fun in a way that so few things in Richie’s adult life tend to be. He’s been in New York for all of twenty hours, but he’s having…a really great time, actually. 

Eddie’s wearing a rented helmet - Richie wonders what kind of mental math he did to decide that the risk of head lice was better than the risk of a cracked skull. He looks cute as hell.

“Stop showing off,” Richie says, when Eddie spins on his skates to face Richie, skating backwards. “You’re going to crash into someone.

“Not if I go the speed of traffic,” Eddie says, as if that makes any fucking sense. Eleven-year-olds at an ice rink do not follow the rules of the road. Richie reaches out, uncoordinated, and takes Eddie’s wrist in his hand. 

“I’ll be your eyes,” Richie says, and Eddie smiles, small, and tucks his chin a bit. 

They go around a few times without incident. Richie’s not as strong a skater as he remembers, although to be fair, he can’t remember the last time he actually went skating. His centre of gravity is much higher than it was when they were kids. Of course, it’s not as easy. So few things are. 

“Hey,” Richie says when they’re skating side by side again. Eddie looks at him, eyebrow up in question. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says. “I was scared it’d be, I don’t know. Weird? Like, hanging out again without the pretence of murder and mayhem. But it isn’t.”

“I know what you mean,” Eddie says. “I was kinda nervous.”

Richie smiles. “Not anymore?” He asks.

Eddie shakes his head. “Not anymore.”

-

After they turn in their rented skates and put their shoes back on, they stand across the street from the Rockefeller Tree and stare at it through a throng of constantly moving passersby. Eddie is leaning against Richie’s arm, just a light pressure of his shoulder against Richie’s arm. 

Richie asks, “Is this Nora Ephron’s New York, Eddie? Are you taking me on a tour of her town?”

Eddie laughs. “I wish I could see it that way. It just smells like garbage most of the time.”

“I thought you liked it here,” Richie says.

Eddie shrugs. “I’m sure I could like other places too. I’m no Meg Ryan. Bev is no Carrie Fisher. And you’re no Tom Hanks, on the other side of the country, living on a houseboat.”

“You’re blending your movies together there.”

“Point still stands. I don’t know if it’s really as romantic as she made it seem. I think it’s just lonely. And really loud.” 

Richie disagrees. As they leave Rockefeller, he tries to take it all in. There’s a family about to join the line to skate. There’s someone inside 30 Rock whose dream is coming true. Richie thinks New York really is like a fairytale. If you’ve never been, you’ve seen it enough in movies that it feels familiar. The skyline, the bridges, the breadth of the sidewalks. 

He’s been here before and never liked it this much. Richie figures that if he can have a good time in Derry with Eddie, he can have a good time with him anywhere. New York be damned.

Still, it feels special because it’s been Eddie’s home for so long. Richie would do anything to feel that lucky. To house him and witness his life take shape. 

New York doesn’t know how lucky it’s been. 

-

The next morning, Richie fries mushrooms and scrambles eggs. Eddie emerges from his room just as Richie is buttering slices of toast and cutting them into triangles. 

“Smells great,” Eddie says, leaning on the counter. Richie flicks on the kettle so Eddie can have his tea. 

“Good,” Richie says. Eddie’s still in his pyjamas. “Any Christmas Eve traditions you want to tackle today?”

Eddie shakes his head. His hair is sticking up in every which direction. Cute, cute, cute. Richie wants to kiss him or give him a noogie. Both. 

Sandbox love. 

“Not really,” Eddie says. “I figured, uh. Take out and movies? We can cook tomorrow if you want. But we can do whatever you want.”

“Movies and take out sounds great,” Richie says. He turns off the burner on the stove and takes plates from the cupboard. Uses the wooden spoon to split the eggs into two servings before pushing them onto the plates. Does the same with the mushrooms. 

The kettle whistles and Eddie makes them each a cup of tea, and carries cutlery to the coffee table as Richie carries their plates. 

Richie is distracted by the process of scooping eggs and then mushrooms onto a triangle of toast, and didn’t notice Eddie start eating, so when Eddie makes a surprised sound in the back of his throat, Richie flushes and then has to stifle his own reaction to Eddie’s reaction. 

“This is really good,” Eddie says, mouth still full of food. 

“Chew with your mouth closed,” Richie says. “Gross.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “How’d you get the mushrooms like this?”

“Crispy, you mean?”

Eddie nods. 

“Hmm. I dated someone who taught me that if you heat the butter super hot and put just a few mushrooms into the pan, you can get them to come out brown and crispy like this. If you only heat the butter a bit and crowd too many mushrooms in, they’ll be mushy and wet.” Richie smiles at the memory. In the haze of remembering that he’s been living in since returning from Derry, it’s been easy to forget that his entire life hasn’t been agony. That there are nice memories too. Richie takes a bite of his piled-high toast and decides to be brave. “Every time I make mushrooms, I think about him.”

Eddie blinks at him, then smiles. “Cool trick he had,” he says, an acknowledgement in its own way. “Any other tricks?”

Richie smirks. “There was another guy, in college, who taught me to put sour cream in my scrambled eggs. But since I never put sour cream into scrambled eggs, I never really think about him.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but takes another big bite of eggs. After he chews., he says, “Thanks for trusting me. For telling me.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, suddenly so relieved he could cry. He feels…so much lighter. Like he’s maybe not incredibly old. Like maybe he has time, still, to make his life the way he wants it to be. Softer, maybe, kinder, definitely. A little more fun, a little less sad, not a joke after the fact. No punchline. 

-

The morning of Christmas Eve has always felt slightly unreal to Richie. Liminal space.

Growing up, the holidays were strange in Richie’s house. His mom, the secular black sheep of her traditional family, always felt guilty around Christmas. She told him once, when his sister’s kids were just babies still, that she regretted not fighting with Richie’s dad about infusing more of her Jewish traditions into their lives. Richie remembers going to Stan’s bar-mitzvah and feeling slightly jealous of all the ceremony. 

Stan’s parents used to invite Richie over for Shabbat, and let him and Stan sip on their Friday night fruit wine, and Richie liked being a part of it but never really knew what it meant. He’s not religious now, but he sometimes thinks he understands how his mom felt - not left out, but left behind, maybe. Like there’s something he could have had in his back pocket that could have given him comfort if only he’d been given the chance to hold onto it. 

While Eddie makes them toast, Richie types up an email to send to Stan’s wife. He chews at the skin around his thumbnail until it’s raw and stinging. 

“Let me see,” Eddie says from behind Richie on the couch. He leans over Richie, and Richie twists his neck to look at the side of his face. Eddie’s hand lands on Richie’s shoulder. Richie turns back to read it over, trying to see it through Eddie’s eye. 

“I think this is good,” Eddie says. “You’re a good writer, you know.”

“It’s just an email,” Richie says, flat, and Eddie squeezes at the line of muscle that runs across Richie’s shoulder and up into his neg. He leans into the pressure. 

“It’s not just an email,” Eddie says. He sighs. “I wish he was here.”

“Me too,” Richie says, because what else is there to say. Stan should be here and isn’t. It’s really sad. Richie says, “I talk about him a lot in therapy.” 

“And,” Eddie says —Richie can tell he’s trying to figure out what the right thing to say is— “Does that help?” 

Richie shrugs, jostling Eddie’s hand on his shoulder. “I guess. I don’t know. He was a fully-formed person I knew nothing about.” 

“You did know him,” Eddie says. “And he knew you.”

“His poor wife,” Richie says, and Eddie gives his shoulder one last squeeze before he moves around the couch and sits beside Richie. 

He settles in close and gestures at the computer in Richie’s lap. “Can I?”

Richie nods, passes it over. Eddie moves a few sentences around, then says, “What about that?”

“Thanks,” Richie says. “I hope we don’t freak her out.”

Eddie smiles, then, and knocks their arms together. “Happy Hanukkah, Rich.”

“Thanks,” he says. Eddie pats Richie’s knee once, then squeezes before he stands up. Richie leans back on the couch, closes his eyes and whispers, “Happy Hanukkah, Stanley.” 

\- 

Richie offers to walk to a bodega around the corner once the credits roll on _Home Alone_. Eddie gets to pick the next movie, so Richie is responsible for feeding them a late lunch. They’re already planning to order Vietnamese food for dinner later, so Richie’s really slumming it on the nutritional value of their lunch as he stares at the various flavours of Doritos on offer. 

Because Richie is actually insane and can’t go all of five minutes without Eddie’s attention now that he’s had so much of it, he texts him, _we should go to canada to get all dressed chips_. 

_Maybe for new years eve,_ Eddie responds immediately. _Get cool ranch or die._

_-_

“So you’re saying that Hallmark, the greeting card company, is the same Hallmark that has a TV channel that only makes terrible movies about a woman from the big city going back home to fall in love with a ranch hand.”

“I don’t understand how you don’t get this,” Richie says through his laughter. Eddie’s getting all riled up.

“Next you’re going to tell me that a tire company is the same as the one that recommends restaurants.”

“It’s the same Michelin!” Richie says, and Eddie says, “Shut the fuck up, Richie, it’s not even that funny.”

“It is funny because you think I’m pulling your leg but I am in fact telling the truth. It’s the same Michelin.” 

They stopped paying attention to the movie a while ago; Eddie’s growing restless after doing basically nothing all day. On the TV, Meg Ryan says, “Do you know what it is to go to the mattresses?” and Greg Kinnear says, “It’s from the Godfather.” In Eddie’s living room, Eddie says, “Everything on earth is going to be owned by Disney one day.” 

“I saw this documentary once,” Richie starts. Eddie pauses the movie.

“Mickey Mouse Monopoly?” Eddie interrupts.

“Yes? You’ve seen it? No one’s seen it.”

“I got stoned and watched it on Youtube a few years ago,” Eddie says. “Myra was visiting her sister in New Hampshire and I stayed home.” 

“And you got stoned all weekend?”

“Absofukinglutely, I did.”

“God,” Richie bites his own lip. Imagines Eddie trying to buy weed. “Did you have to bum joints from the interns at work?”

Eddie laughs. “No, I had a weed guy.”

“Oh, a weed guy,” Richie laughs. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “You know, like your agent? But he delivers drugs to me in his mom’s Subaru.”

“Your weed guy is a nineteen-year-old with a lesbian mom?”

“Yeah, fuck you!” 

Richie smiles. “I wish I’d known you forever,” he says. 

“You have known me forever,” Eddie says. 

“You know what I mean,” Richie says. He burrows further into the couch. Outside, it’s started to snow. Just dusty, small flakes. It’s beautiful. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I guess I do.”

-

On their way back from picking up their Pho, the snow picks up. Across the street from Eddie’s apartment, there’s a group of carollers huddled under an outdoor heater. They’re singing a song that Richie doesn’t recognize. As Eddie unlocks the door to his building, Richie asks, “What song is that?”

Eddie stills and listens for a minute. “Galway Bay,” he says. “I think.”

Richie’s brow furrows. “Wait,” he says. “Like _Fairytale of New York_.”

Eddie smiles. “You got it.” 

“Huh,” Richie says, and then follows Eddie inside, out of the snow. 

\- 

When Richie wakes up the next morning, the tip of his nose is cold. It’s chilled in the apartment; Eddie likes natural light — has more houseplants than Richie would have expected— so he keeps the curtains open most of the time. He gave Richie a spiel about his circadian rhythm when he first got here. Richie tried to say it was bad for the environment; a waste of energy to let all the heat out through the windows. 

Richie buries his face into his pillow, then stretches. The pull-out bed creaks with the movement. 

“Are you awake now?” Eddie asks, and Richie startles. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Richie says, reaching for his glasses. 

“Yes, that’s who’s birthday it is.” 

“That bitch was born in the spring,” Richie says. “You scared me.”

He sits up, catches sight of Eddie, sitting on his kitchen counter, legs swinging. He takes a big sip from the mug in his hand. Richie assumes it’s tea. 

“Merry Christmas,” Eddie says, raising his mug in salute. 

“Merry Christmas,” Richie says. He rolls over and Eddie laughs at him as he flails and then sits up. 

“You wanna watch Charlie Brown?” Eddie asks. Eddie was always a sucker for Charlie Brown, when they were kids. “I have the DVD set.”

“Eds,” Richie says, cracking a grin. “That is so cute.” 

“Shut up,” Eddie says, and hops off the counter.

Richie smiles. “Of all the Eddie Kaspbraks in the world, your the Eddie Kaspbrakiest.” 

Richie makes himself a cup of tea as Eddie sets up the DVD, and then they fold the pullout back into the shape of a couch. They settle, and Richie settles against the armrest. Eddie stretches across the couch, and tucks his sock feet under Richie’s thigh. 

“How old are they supposed to be?” Richie asks a few minutes in. Eddie shrugs. “They’re so depressed.”

“Yeah, I mean. Christmas is kind of depressing.” 

Richie leans his head back and rolls his neck to look at Eddie. “This is the best Christmas I’ve had in a long time,” Richie says. 

“And we’re not even doing anything,” Eddie says. “Me too, though.”

“Am I Charlie Brown?” Richie asks. Eddie snorts.

“You would think you’re the main character.”

“Oh, and who are you?” Eddie sucks his lips into his mouth. “Oh, I see how it is. You’re the main character.”

“I think Stan would be Charlie, actually. You’re Snoopy.” Richie raises his eyebrow in question. Eddie says, “All the impressions he does.” 

“Are you Lucy?” Richie puts on a voice. “ _Get some disinfectant, get some iodine.”_

Eddie bursts out laughing. “Bill is Schroeder.” 

“Does that mean Ben is Sally and Ben is Linus?”

“This metaphor is falling apart,” Eddie says, flexing his toes against Richie’s leg. They watch, and Lucy enlists Charlie into directing their Christmas play. Richie’s not sure when he last watched this — must have been when they were kids. 

When Charlie picks out his tiny twig of a Christmas tree, Richie catches Eddie mouthing along to the movie. _I think this one needs me_. Richie’s heart feels tight in his chest. “Do you watch this every year?” Richie asks. 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s my favourite.”

Once the movie is done, Eddie says, “Do you want a mimosa?”

“Who even are you?” Richie asks. Eddie makes his way into the kitchen, opens the fridge to take out a small carton of orange juice and a bottle of prosecco. 

“What? It’s a holiday.” He looks sheepish. As if Richie is one to judge. 

“Just one for now,” Richie says. 

Eddie looks at the clock on the stove. “It’s almost noon.”

“Twist my rubber arm, man.”

Eddie pours them each a mimosa, into mugs because he doesn’t have champagne flutes, and Richie is charmed by that beyond belief. Imagines Eddie as a grad student, drinking out of pickle jars with the labels peeled off. He’d give anything to have known Eddie then. 

When Eddie joins him back onto the couch, Richie’s fingers find the hem of his pyjama pants. His fingers settle near his ankle bone, and his heart pounds. He pulls at a loose thread along the seam. Eddie doesn’t budge. 

“Hey Eds?” Richie tugs at his pant leg a bit, and Eddie flexes his toes. Turns to look at Richie, dead on. “Thanks for having me. I- it’s been really nice.” 

“Thanks for coming,” Eddie says. He sips at his mug once before putting it down on the coffee table. When he settles, he’s closer to Richie, one foot on the ground, his knee bent towards Richie in a sharp angle. 

Eddie’s fingers wrap around Richie’s forearm, and Richie turns his face to look at Eddie. He’s only halfway turned around when Eddie presses his lips to Richie’s, just one, unmoving and relatively chaste. Richie doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Eddie pulls his face away, craning his neck. “Rich,” he says, and when he exhales, Richie can feel Eddie’s breath on his cheek.

Richie’s blood feels like it’s shaking beneath his skin. He pulls away. 

“I.” He swallows, and dares to open his eyes. Eddie’s eyes are trained right on Richie’s mouth. The space between them on the couch feels radioactive. Richie’s mind is soup. His veins are full of bees. He wishes Eddie would unzip his skin and step fully inside him and live there for the rest of his days. Just…absolutely crazy bullshit that he could never say out loud. Clears his throat. “Are you sure?”

Eddie blinks and finally meets Richie’s gaze. “Yes?”

“I need you to be sure, Eds. ‘Cause I can’t - I’m not - I won’t be able to recover, if you’re not. I can’t pretend it won’t kill me if you take it back.” 

“Jesus,” Eddie says, scares his shoulders. “You just say stuff like that and it’s like…How could I be anything but 100% certain? I’ve never been certain about anything in my life, Richie. I have second-guessed every single fucking thing I have ever done or said. But.” He swallows, and Richie thinks he might have a full-out jammer. His heart might give way right now. His hands tremor in his lap. He squeezes his own thigh. Having something to concentrate on to help ground him in this moment. A moment that is really happening. That he never thought he would actually exist inside. A little pocket of time in a huge universe full of, truly, infinite possibilities. And here’s Richie, sitting in Eddie’s little apartment on Christmas day, on Eddie’s couch, a blanket across his lap, Eddie in front of him. Eddie says, “I’m really, really sure. Richie. Please.”

“Okay,” Richie says. “I believe you.” He smiles, and watches Eddie process what Richie’s just said. And then Richie leans back in, because Eddie made the first move, Eddie was brave first, because he was always brave first. Richie was always brave second. He could do it now that it had already happened once before. He presses his mouth to Eddie’s, less of a kiss and more just shoving their faces together, but then Eddie exhales, relaxes, and Richie takes his face in both his hands, and it’s a bit better after that. 

Richie exhales heavily when they pull apart, and Eddie huffs a small laugh. It’s all very insular. Like the world at large can’t fit how massive and delicate and precious and explosive the moment is. Tectonic plates shifting. Eddie smiles, and Richie thinks he understands the science behind spontaneous human combustion. 

“I really hope we’re good at this,” Eddie all but whispers into Richie’s mouth. It’s vulnerable, Richie knows. He’s scared, too. 

“We can practice,” Richie says, and Eddie laughs. The wave of relief that washes over him is bigger than a tsunami. 

They scramble back together, then, laughing into each other’s mouths until they aren’t laughing at all, but reaching and grappling and moaning and whining. Richie would probably feel embarrassed if it wasn’t obvious that Eddie’s feeling strung out in a similar way. At the real end of his proverbial rope, where his wanting is concerned. Richie’s left hand trails from Eddie’s cheek, down his arm to grope at Eddie’s thigh, inching up slowly, and then in until he can feel the seam of Eddie’s pants. Eddie presses his palm to Richie’s chest before he slowly pulls back. 

“Not to, um. Be clichéd.” He clears his throat. “But can we, uh. Bedroom?”

Richie nods, stands abruptly in front of the couch. “Yes,” he says, nodding again. “Please.”

Eddie’s mouth quirks up in the corner. Then he shoves at Richie’s chest gently, pushing him towards the bedroom. “Okay, so let’s go. Chop chop, Richie.”

Richie laughs, steps around the coffee table and then takes hold of Eddie’s wrist to tug him along with him. They make it most of the way before Richie gives up prematurely, presses his body along Eddie’s until Eddie’s back meets the wall. “You’re so,” Eddie says, and Richie crushes their lips together, far less gentle than before, licking into Eddie’s mouth and behind his teeth. It’s pretty classless as kisses go. But to be fair, Richie’s not really going for class. He’s trying to absorb Eddie’s DNA via osmosis with his tongue. Their chests press together, and the inches that make up their height difference have Richie stooping. He can feel where Eddie’s hard against his leg, though, and that alone sends him into a frenzy of movement. Eddie tugs at the hair at Richie’s nape, and he eventually pulls back. Eddie tucks his face into Richie’s neck, and his breath is sticky and hot against Richie’s skin. 

“I thought you were going to pick me up, for a second there,” Eddie mumbles, dragging his teeth against Richie’s carotid.

“Didn’t want to blow out my back before we got started,” Richie says. Eddie laughs against him, and his whole chest shakes with it. Richie drops to press a kiss to the crown of Eddie’s head. Eddie runs his hands up and down Richie’s back, slower than before; like it’s less about feeling Richie’s back and simply about touching it, and somehow — even if Richie hadn’t understood the distinction before — there is actually a difference. 

“Are we stalling?” Eddie asks, very quiet. Richie shakes his head, no, but he understands. 

“I’m scared.” Richie says, and Eddie tilts his head back until he can meet Richie’s gaze.

He nods. “We’re pretty good at doing scary stuff together.”

“Thank God,” Richie says, smiles. “Are you ready?”

Eddie smiles and squeezes both of Richie’s arms. “Yeah, are you?”

\- 

They stumble into Eddie’s bedroom, and Richie realizes that, maybe, time doesn’t really exist in Eddie’s apartment. There’s nothing from the outside world that could pull Richie out of Eddie’s bed - not now. His whole life has narrowed down into this one moment. The whole universe condensing into this little blip of luck, space, and time. 

Eddie’s got his t-shirt halfway off before Richie’s even really in the room, and then they’re both shucking out of their pants, and then Richie is standing at the side of Eddie’s bed, cheeks burning hot, because Eddie’s not wearing underwear, and his dick is just. There. 

He’s bigger than Richie expected, given Eddie’s general stature and the size of his hands. He’s bigger than Richie expected, and Richie has certainly thought about it enough to have some kind of expectation. He swallows, and feels like a cartoon character, feels like the sound of it echoes. “Richie,” Eddie says, and it snaps Richie out of his reverie and back into the dream that is his reality. When Richie looks at Eddie’s face, he’s smiling, almost shy, and the apples of his cheeks are pink, too, so Richie at least feels a bit less embarrassed about zoning out while looking at Eddie’s dick. 

“Sorry,” Richie says. Then, “Please may I suck your dick?”

Eddie bites his lip and raises an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah, sure.” He kind of laughs then, but Richie knows it’s not at him. It’s just the anatomy of a joke. Tension, mounting until it topples, then breaks. Relief. Eddie settles against the headboard, shifts the pillows around. He shifts back on the bed, and Richie moves to settle between Eddie’s spread legs. 

“Cool,” Richie says, and takes Eddie in his hand. Wraps his fingers around him. Exhales a heavy breath he didn’t know he was holding in. Cherishes this for what it is: the first time he has ever touched Eddie. It’ll happen again, he can feel it in his bones, but never again for the first time. Soon, he’s going to know what Eddie tastes like, what he sounds like, what he looks like. The immensity is enough to be Richie’s undoing, but instead, he feels…very alive. Very rooted, all the way down to the bottom of himself. Certain. 

The head of Eddie’s cock is flushed, already beading with precum. Richie runs his thumb over the slit, fascinated. He knows he’s being weird but can’t really stop himself. He rearranges his limbs so he’s propped up on his forearm above Eddie, presses a kiss to his hip. Feels his flexors tense and jump before Eddie exhales and they relax again. 

Then, he takes the head of Eddie into his mouth, swirls his tongue around it and then sucks his cheeks in, and that’s when time and space and the entire continuum really shift to accommodate the entire universe that is Eddie Kaspbrak’s dick. Richie moves, then, bobbing his head and moving his wrist and tensing his fingers. Eddie’s hands squeeze tightly at Richie’s shoulders, and he’s making these throaty little sounds make Richie’s dick, impossibly, harder. He pulls off, not bothering to wipe at the string of spit that stretches and drags from his mouth to Eddie; instead, he takes Eddie’s hands and puts them on his head. Eddie’s fingers sink into Richie’s hair and Richie says, “Tell me what you want.”

“Fuck,” Eddie says, fingernails scratching lightly against Richie’s scalp. “Uh. This works. Whatever works. I don’t know.”

Richie licks up Eddie’s dick from the base to the tip. Says, “Use your hands. You won’t hurt me.”

And then he puts his mouth back over Eddie, shifts up a bit so he can suck Eddie’s dick in deeper. Breathes through his nose and through his gag reflex until he feels himself relax into the feel of it, the weight of Eddie against his tongue. He tongues at Eddie, and Eddie’s fingers tighten in Richie’s hair. Richie groans around him, deep in his chest, and Eddie’s dick twitches in his mouth. Richie, in that moment, feels like the luckiest person on earth. In the history of the world, maybe. 

Eddie figures out that Richie meant it, that he wants Eddie to really press into Richie, to take what he wants, what he needs, from Richie. Richie sucks and moans around Eddie, pulls back to tongue at the tip until Eddie presses him back down. Richie likes sucking dick, has since he did it the very first time, but it’s different with Eddie. As most things are. He always thought that porn actors were faking it, the way they moaned into it, eyes rolling back. But with the taste of Eddie on his tongue and the feeling of Eddie trying to hold his hips down but failing at it, bucking up into Richie because he wants it, so bad that he can’t help it - Richie thinks he could die from how good it all feels.

“Richie,” Eddie says, his voice deep and scratching. He tugs at Richie’s hair once, and then again when Richie doesn’t pull off. “Baby, please, I don’t want to -“ Richie moans at the pet name, slurps at Eddie one last, long time and then pulls back when Eddie tugs on his hair again. “I don’t wanna come yet.” 

Eddie’s cockhead is flushed a deep red, so hard it looks like it hurts. Richie wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, and Eddie catches his wrist in his hand and tugs until Richie settles, essentially, in Eddie’s lap. He traces his hand up Richie’s neck and to his cheek. “Do you want your glasses on? Or off?”

Richie presses his cheek into Eddie’s palm, beside himself at how tender it feels. “Like seeing you,” he says, which isn’t an answer, not really. Eddie just nods, quick, a single dip of his chin. 

“Okay,” Eddie says, and leaves them. “What do you-“

“Anything,” Richie says. “Anything you want.”

Eddie kisses him, bites at his lip. “Hm, but what do you want?”

Richie shakes his head. How could he ever explain? 

He’s thought about this every single God-damned day of his life. Even when he couldn’t remember Eddie, he knew he was missing something, something big; knew there was a big part of him, something more than the whole of what he carried around, that was missing. Something so much bigger and brighter and much more beautiful. There was something he wanted but could never name. He remembered everything about Eddie without knowing it, wanted him with him for his entire, stupid little life. He spent years and years reaching for him, even when he didn’t know what it was he was looking for. There was a hole inside him, inside his life, and he knew there was something that would fit just right, if he could ever find it. And then he saw Eddie again and he understood. Richie wanted him everywhere, all the time, forever. 

He wanted to eat Eddie. Literally consume him. He wanted to live inside Eddie’s skin. He wanted Eddie to be a part of him, and to be a part of Eddie in turn. He wanted Eddie to cut him open and lay him bare and he wanted to say, ‘Look, I’m alive, you’re alive, I love you, you’re everything, you’re real and I’m real and all this stuff inside me is real because of you.’ 

How could he ever explain?

He says, “Will you,” and Eddie presses the heel of his hand against Richie’s dick through his underwear. “Want you in me.”

“Yes,” Eddie says. “Of course.” He lifts up to kiss into Richie’s mouth, his hands on Richie’s ribs. He tugs at the waistband of Richie’s briefs and says, “Get up, take these off.”

Richie fumbles off of Eddie’s lap and kind of rolls onto his back to hike his hips up and slip his underwear off his legs. He scrambles back into Eddie’s lap, because he likes it, hasn’t really been given the opportunity to sit in the laps of any of the men he’s been with, with the nature of his size. Eddie doesn’t seem to care. 

His skin feels like it’s full of static charge. He feels like his teeth are about to start chattering. And then Eddie runs his hands up both of Richie’s legs, from his knees towards the crease of his hips, against the grain of the hair on his thighs, and Richie shutters a breath and feels a bit more like he’s in his own body. He laughs, barely, and says, “Eddie, you’re a tease.” 

“I want to look at you,” Eddie says. “I wish I could eat you,” he says, and Richie realizes — Eddie really does feel the same. They’re here together, really, and they’re both in just as deep. Every weird, crazy thing that Richie thinks about Eddie, Eddie would understand. Eddie was always the same kind of crazy that Richie was. He always meets him halfway. Richie got on the phone and said, “I’m alone, I’m all on my own, I’m lonely,” and Eddie had said, “I’m alone too. I don’t want to be on my own. I don’t want you to be lonely,” and invited Richie to get on a plane. 

Richie has spent his entire adult life wishing for someone to look at him and understand. 

And here’s Eddie - smart and handsome and funnier than God - and Richie…doesn’t need to worry about Eddie looking too close. Richie has been afraid, for so long, of saying the wrong thing, doing something the wrong way, and someone catching it, seeing Richie, flawed and full of fear, and that being the punchline to a joke he never meant to tell. That someone would look at him and have the last laugh. But it’s different, he realizes, when you love someone and they love you back. It’s not about perception; Richie isn’t being perceived. There’s no judgement behind it. Eddie looks at Richie and he sees him. 

“Next time,” Richie says, and Eddie grins.

“I have. Um. Lube. Condoms.” He points to the bedside table, and Richie leans over to open it, barely lifting from Eddie’s lap. Eddie squeezes the meat of Richie’s thigh, and his dick twitches. Eddie hums in his throat before wrapping the fingers of his left hand around the base of Richie’s dick. Richie uncaps the bottle of lube and Eddie holds out his hand out to Richie, two fingers crooked slightly. 

“Real team effort up in this bitch,” Richie says. Eddie rolls his eyes. 

“I’m sure there will be times when you’re lazy as hell about sex,” Eddie says. Richie gets distracted when his fingers press in behind his balls and then angle up towards his hole. 

“You gonna let me be a pillow princess?”

Eddie jerks his hand over Richie dick as he presses one finger into him and says, “Yeah, if you want.”

Richie slumps forward a bit, breathing into Eddie’s hair heavily. Eddie works him with just one finger until Richie starts to keen. When he adds a second, Richie bites at the shell of Eddie’s ear, and Eddie twitches, full-bodied. 

“Do that again,” Eddie says, raspy. 

“Eds,” Richie says into his ear, husky on purpose, and licks along the cartilage of Eddie’s ear before nipping at it again. He moves to take hold of Eddie’s dick, but Eddie takes the hand off Richie’s dick to stop him. 

“Too sensitive,” Eddie says. “I don’t want to blow the second I’m inside you.”

“Oh my fucking God,” Richie says, absolutely beside himself at how much he wants Eddie. “Please hurry up,” he says, and Eddie presses, intentionally, into Richie with his fingers. Hits his prostate and circles it in a smooth movement. Richie whines, a truly mortifying sound leaving his mouth without permission, and gasps, “Jesus, you’re. You’re good at this.”

“You too,” Eddie says. Holds onto Richie’s thigh with a tight grip. A third finger touches at the tight ring of Richie’s hole, and Eddie says, “You’re going to feel so good.”

“Eddie, baby, please,” Richie begs, and Eddie kisses his chin. 

“Okay, okay,” and pulls his fingers out. Wipes them on the bed sheet beside them, which makes Richie laugh. “How do you want to,” and gestures vaguely between them.

“Can I stay like this?” Richie asks, and almost feels shy until Eddie says, “Of course,” like it’s nothing. 

Eddie rolls on a condom and then slicks his dick with more lube. They adjust slightly, Eddie shifting down the bed by a few inches, Richie shifting forward, and then Eddie’s lined up against Richie’s hole. Richie holds onto the top edge of the headboard to balance his weight. Eddie presses up to kiss Richie, the most delicate thing Richie’s ever been given, and then Richie sinks down onto Eddie. 

He moves slowly, breathing heavily into the space between them. When he bottoms out, he realizes his eyes are closed and forces himself to open them and look at Eddie’s face. 

Eddie’s own eyes are closed, his cheeks pink. His two front teeth are pressed into his bottom lip, barely visible but definitely there, and his breath is a bit shallow. There’s a little wrinkle between his eyes. 

“Eds,” Richie laughs with it. “Are you good?”

Eddie blinks his eyes open, brow furrowed. “I’m.” Inhales a shaky breath. “Yes?” It squeaks out of him. 

“You sure?” Richie smiles at him.

“Shut up,” he says. “It. You -“ He touches Richie’s chest. “You feel really good.”

Richie lifts up slowly, adjusting to the movement, and then rocks back down experimentally. “Yeah?” He asks. 

“Fuck,” Eddie gasps. “Yes, Richie. It feels good having my dick in your ass.”

Richie laughs, and then says, “Oh,” surprised at pleasure sparks up through his veins. “You feel good, too,” he pants. Rocks back up and down Eddie’s cock, leans his weight back a bit onto his shins. And that changes something, the shift in angle making it so that each time he sinks back down, Eddie brushes against his prostate. Not like before, with his fingers, persistent and exact, but in a delicious and drawn-out teasing kind of way. It doesn’t take long before Eddie is meeting Richie’s movements, bending his knees behind Richie and leveraging his hips to thrust up into Richie each time he sinks down. 

Eddie finally takes Richie in his hand again, presses his thumb to the underside of the head of Richie’s dick. Richie squirms into his touch, desperate for it, leaking with desire. 

“Eddie,” Richie says, doesn’t know what else he wants to say. He feels full, overwhelmed in a manageable way. How lucky, to be alive for this, to be here at the same time as Eddie, to want him and be wanted by him. Eddie tugs Richie forward with a hand on his hip and that changes the angle again; how lucky Richie is, to be here with Eddie’s perfect dick in his ass. He laughs, then, the pleasure and pressure and insurmountable joy mounting. The anatomy of a joke. The best part is always just before the tension breaks. Again, Richie says, “Eddie.”

“Tell me what you need,” Eddie says. Richie grips the headboard still, knuckles white, and with his other hand, he grips at Eddie’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he says. He shakes his head. “I just-“

“Baby,” Eddie says. “Tell me.”

Richie feels like an egg has been cracked on the top of his head, trickling down. A full-body shudder. He says, “Harder.”

Eddie groans, pistoning his pelvis up with more gusto. Richie realizes then that Eddie was holding back. He jerks his hand over Richie’s dick in rhythm with their movements, and Richie grinds down onto Eddie in a way that makes his eyes pinch shut. 

A hand on Richie’s cheek makes him open his eyes. Eddie is usually an intense guy, in a normal situation. Balls deep in Richie, he’s something else. He seems…very young. And maybe he is, maybe they both are, maybe they have lots and lots of time left. Eddie says, “Richie,” and it sounds like he means something else. 

Richie realizes Eddie is waiting for him, and something about the licks at the root of Richie’s spine, deep in his nervous system. Eddie always, his whole life long, has waited for Richie. Just as Richie’s waited for him. Richie turns his cheek to kiss at the palm of Eddie’s hand before licking along the length of his fingers. Eddie, bless him, takes the hint and stuffs his fingers into Richie’s mouth. 

Richie swirls his tongue around them and Eddie says, “Holy fucking-“

The anatomy of a joke. The tension breaks. Richie’s orgasm topples through him unexpectedly. He groans around Eddie’s fingers and clenches around Eddie’s dick and comes all over Eddie’s hand. 

“Oh my God, Richie.” Eddie’s breath catches on his name, and Richie feels his thighs shaking. He pulls his fingers from Richie’s mouth, and Richie surges to kiss him, panting into his mouth more than anything, but relishing that it’s another place they’re connected. Licks into Eddie’s mouth so their bodies really bleed together. A snake eating its own tail. 

Richie’s sensitive, over-stimulated in a way he usually hates but for some reason leans into with Eddie. Into Eddie’s mouth, he says, “Come on,” and because Eddie’s never met a challenge he couldn’t rise to, he shudders, comes deep inside Richie with shaking arms and the release of his bated breath. 

After a few sticky seconds, Richie pulls off with a short hiss. He collapses onto his back beside Eddie on the bed, and then says, “Holy shit.”

Eddie laughs. “Yeah.”

They lay in an easy silence for a few minutes, breathing beside each other without talking. Eddie lifts his hands to trace his fingertips along the sensate skin on the inside of Richie’s forearm. It tickles, but not in a way that makes him want to pull away. It’s just nice.

“Shower?” Richie asks, turns to look at Eddie’s profile. His eyes are closed. He looks peaceful. 

“You go first,” Eddie says. “I need to,” he waves his hands in the air. “I don’t know. Rebuild my bones or something.”

“I’ll rebuild your bones, alright,” Richie snorts. Eddie flips him a middle finger, eyes still closed. Richie smiles. 

He sits up gingerly, picks his briefs up off the floor, and makes his way to the shower. He pops his head around the doorframe before he goes, doubling back to say, “Hey Eds?”

“Hmm?” Eddie mumbles, cracking open one eye to look at Richie. 

“Merry Christmas,” Richie says.

Eddie smiles. “Merry Christmas, Rich.”

-

After Eddie’s showered, they heat up their left-overs from the night before and eat sitting cross-legged on the couch. Since they didnt make it through the whole thing the day before, the last thirty minutes of _You’ve Got Mail_ are playing out on the TV. They’ve been talking over most of it. 

“I just don’t buy the redemption arc,” Eddie says, and Richie scoffs. 

“Eds, babe, you _are_ Tom Hanks in this scenario. You understand this, right?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I am not. He’s such a dick to her. He’s a liar and he chooses to continue deceiving her.”

“But he’s Mister Business Man and so are you.”

Eddie narrows his eyes at him, and then startles a laugh. “On the phone. I can’t believe you told me to edge myself.”

“I did not!” Richie says. “It’s not my fault you thought that’s what I meant.”

“You brought up my jerk-off schedule with absolutely no prompting!”

Richie sets his plate on the coffee table in front of him and says, “My entire relationship with you can be considered edging.”

Richie expects him to laugh, turns to look at Eddie when he doesn’t. His neck and cheeks are flushed. “Really?” He asks.

Eddie looks at him, shrugs. “I guess! I don’t know! Shut up!”

“Don’t get snippy with me, Eds. C’mon. You wanna experiment?” 

Eddie abandons his own empty dinner plate on the coffee table. “Not right now.”

Richie kisses his shoulder, then snuggles into his side because he can. He’s allowed. On-screen, Meg Ryan says, _all these nothings have meant more than so many somethings,_ and Richie feels. Something. Love, probably. 

Outside Eddie’s apartment, it’s snowing, thick and huge fluffy snowflakes, like from the movies, and Richie feels very grateful. 

“When’s your flight home?” Eddie asks. 

Richie says, “I booked for the third.” Eddie chews on his lip. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, and smiles. 

When the movie ends, Eddie says, “Hey Rich?” and then, sing-songy, “What are you doing New Year's Eve?”

Richie smiles. “Hopefully you.”

\- 

When Richie wakes up the next morning, the snow has stopped. There’s an inch or so piled up on the outside of the window sill in Eddie’s bedroom. Beside him, Eddie’s snoring softly, curled up on his side facing Richie, snuffling out through his mouth.

Eddie’s breath hitches and then settles again, and Richie turns onto his side to tuck his back to Eddie’s chest. Eddie’s arm comes around Richie, who isn’t sure if he’s ever been the little spoon. 

Outside, New York is making a god awful racket. Car horns blare. A neighbour shouts somewhere down on the street. There’s a bird on Eddie’s fire escape, clinging to the wrought iron. Richie will have to ask Eddie if he has any bird seed they can put outside. It’s beautiful, the snow in the muted morning light. Richie closes his eyes and tries to memorize everything about the moment. He’s cozy. Eddie’ breath is ticking his neck. He feels immeasurably lucky to be alive. 

December will be over soon. It’s felt very long. The stretches of time where Richie was without Eddie feel expansive. It lasts so long. But not as long as love. Not theirs, at least. They’re going to figure it out. Richie will move here, if needs must. Wouldn’t care where they ended up, so long as they end up there together. 

**Author's Note:**

> \+ someone on twitter said: richie should ride dick more; i said: merry fucking christmas!!!!!!  
> \+ i'm @ decinq_ on twitter :))


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